


Monogram

by WahlBuilder



Series: Scarves and Mittens [15]
Category: Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Angst, Hair-pulling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 15:33:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9078850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Simeon Rasp bids farewell to Mistral and the man he loves.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Rasp and Vahnsinn are characters from _Yarrick: Imperial Creed_ by David Annandale.

‘So, this is it?’

Simeon propped himself on his elbow, watching his lover’s back. Las burns crawled across the broad shoulders, and his right shoulder was slightly lower than the left. A badly healed thick scar running over his spine like a snake or a river on a map. Simeon never asked about this scar, though he knew almost all other ones. The deep cut just over the left hip. A small nick shaped like a rose petal over the sixth rib on the right side. Three parallel cuts running diagonally over the left shoulder blade.

Not all of them were recent, but throughout their relationship—these discreet encounters when they were truly alone and could be themselves for each other—Simeon had learned about all the old ones expect the spinal one. Learned their history, learned their shape with his fingers and his mouth. Most of them were insensitive to the touch, but he liked tracing them anyway.

Simeon’s lover shifted, placing his elbow on his knee, and the muscles of his back played under his skin. Making heat coil in Simeon’s belly—though he was so spent and tired he wouldn’t be able to survive any more lust.

Passion was another thing. Feelings were another thing, too.

His lover’s damp hair was curling where it stuck to the back on his neck. He was smoking a lho-stick, long, trembling aristocratic fingers with cracked nails holding it between the forefinger and the middle finger. The blueish-grey smoke of the stick surrounded his head like a strange halo, not of a saint, but of a ghost. In the uneven yellow light of the bedside lamp his ear was a shell of delicate lines. Simeon wanted to kiss the earlobe.

Valleys and mountains of crumpled sheets were between them. Simeon found enough energy to cross the terrain and press his lips to the salty hip, and wrapped his arms around his lover’s waist.

A hand—just as scarred as everything else—swept hair away from Simeon’s face. ‘It’s your duty,’ his lover said.

Yes, it was duty, his duty to the Emperor, to the Imperium… It didn’t mean that some part of him didn’t want to abandon it and stay here. Have this.

He didn’t even have to abandon his calling. Now that they were not bound by regulations and the formal chain of command, Simeon could have proposed to him—and he didn’t doubt that his lover would have said ‘yes’. But it could only bring them pain, with Simeon going away for years.

‘Commissar Rasp?’

He startled, then smiled, tightening his grip around the flexing muscles of his lover’s waist. ‘Don’t call me that when we are naked. I’m going to have weird thoughts when anyone else addresses me like this.’

His lover raised one eyebrow—a very charming trick in Simeon’s eyes—reached to the bedside table, put off the lho-stick, then, resuming his position, tangled his fingers in Simeon’s hair and pulled.

Simeon hissed at the slight pain, but didn’t object, and even as the pain intensified, the pull getting stronger, his lover forcing him to follow his hand, Simeon didn’t stop him. Letting his lover do this—and more—to him made fire blaze in Simeon’s veins and coil heavy in his belly.

More than the pain, the dark unblinking gaze of his lover was stealing Simeon’s breath.

It was a game, a challenge—and not a game at all.

When his throat was bared completely—though he refused to tear his hands away from his lover’s waist—Simeon closed his eyes and whispered, ‘Rayland…’

As if the name were a command, the pain suddenly disappeared. Simeon opened his eyes.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ Rayland said, and it sounded flat.

The heaviness in Simeon’s gut moved to his chest, changed entirely.

If Rayland asked, he would stay.

He would resign from his position, no matter the disgrace, no matter the repercussions, and stay, dishonoured, with the man he loves.

But maybe Rayland knew it well, too, because he didn’t ask, only closed his too-bright eyes and swallowed.

‘Ray,’ Simeon called, reached out to him, took his hand, limp, dry, entwined their fingers. He looked at their locked hands, brushed Rayland’s knuckles. ‘When I’m old and unwanted in the Guard anymore, I will return to Mistral and ask you a question.’

He turned his gaze from their hands to Rayland’s face, and saw it soften, and saw a smile tug at the corners of Rayland’s bitter mouth. ‘I will say “yes”.’

Commissars don’t usually retire. They just don’t live long enough for that. And their duty never ends.

But Simeon’s breath still caught in his throat.

‘However, I won’t have you return to me without one thing.’

Simeon frowned and let go of Rayland. His lover got up, and Simeon took an opportunity to admire his physique, without any pretence. Rayland looked good in the officer uniform, and looked even better out of it.

He watched Rayland reach into the box on the desk, then Rayland glanced at him over his shoulder, and turned to him while hiding his hands and whatever he had taken out of his box behind his back. The smirk on his face was dangerous—dangerous enough that Simeon sat up on the bed and smiled. ‘What is it?’

Rayland sat down beside him and his hands shot up quicker than Simeon could react to, and then Simeon’s neck was wrapped in soft warmth.

Having finished his task, Rayland sat back.

Simeon looked down at himself at caught the ends of the scarf. It was black and the only adornment was a embroidered monogram, four entwined letters, RV and SR.

Simeon let go of the ends carefully. ‘I… don’t know what to say.’ It made his stupid heart race like mad.

‘You are never dressed properly for our Mistralian winds, Simeon. I decided to change the situation.’ There was humour in Ray’s words, but something else, too.

Simeon touched the monogram again. It was made with fine silver thread. Emperor’s mercy, he would be able to wear it under the storm coat.

He rocked forward and pressed his cheek to Rayland’s, his stubble prickling his skin. ‘I love you, Ray,’ he whispered.

‘I love you, too.’ Rayland wrapped him in his arms as Simeon struggled to hold back quiet sobs that threatened to tear out of his throat. ‘Visit me from time to time? And I won’t forget about you promise. The Emperor protects, and if He has any mercy for us, He will let you return to me.’

‘I would shoot you for this blasphemy,’ Simeon grumbled, trying for his Commissar voice, but it was hard to do that. A smile got in the way.

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ Rayland replied. ‘I’m loyal to the Imperium and the Emperor, my future Baron-consort.’

Those words were enough to make Simeon press himself to Rayland harder.

‘Go, help your Guards defend the Imperium, and then return to me,’ Rayland whispered into his temple. ‘I will wait for you forever. We will be together one day.’

**Author's Note:**

> It's nearly impossible to not read them as lovers in the novel. And it's one of the tragic love stories of Warhammer 40k.


End file.
